Thursday, January 1, 2009

Mochi! Mochi! Mochi!

My family held our annual mochi making day last Saturday. This unsweetened Mochi is eaten on New Years Day in a special soup called ozoni. This type of mochi is formally called "komochi." Eating mochi and ozoni soup on New Years Day will give you good luck and longevity.

We cooked up 175 pounds of mochi rice. Yes, 175 pounds! It takes about 5 hours to complete...and we all take breaks and grab a bite from our international potluck of tamales, burritos, sushi, won tons, dim sum, and mac and cheese!!

Special mochi rice is steamed (my uncle has rigged up gas lines and about 5 steamers - there is a whole crew of family that works on the rice). Cooked rice is then dumped into one of two machines. The machine grinds the hot rice into a sticky mass and it is extruded from the machine. Remember, it's hot, hot, hot. The Cutter cuts off pieces of mochi and then hands it to the Catcher...

My cousin's daughter got promoted to Catcher! The Catcher gets the hot mochi from the Cutter and shapes it for a few seconds (the goal is round mochi pieces). My favorite story of the day: my cousin said his girls play "making mochi" in the sand at the beach!

As the mochi cools, the mochi flattens out a bit.

After the mochi cools, they are pulled off the trays and dusted with mochiko (rice flour). This operation uses three generations of manpower! We are always grooming new talent! :)

Most of the mochi is given out to friends and family so they can toast up a mochi on New Years day and serve it in "ozoni" soup. There are many different types of ozoni soup. (You just gotta be careful...mochi is very chewy and there are always reports of elderly folks in Japan choking on mochi.)

We also cook up mochi during the year and eat it with soy sauce and sugar. I don't know if that is how they do it in Japan, but that's the way my cousins and I eat it! To see last year's photos, see this post.

Ozoni Soup for a good new year!

If you in Los Angeles, head to the Japanese American National Museum on Sunday, January 4, 2009 for a Oshogatsu New Years Family Festival!! They will make mochi the old-fashioned way - pounding it out with a mallet. It's free and fun! Information here.

I want to thank everyone who visited my little blog this year. Thanks for commenting and providing suggestions! I love reading your comments and viewing your blogs...there are so many things I want to make next year! There are some wonderfully creative and supportive people in the world! Happy New Year - May 2009 bring you good health and happiness!

Is it wrong for me to say I'm glad you're laid up? Just because it means you're blogging about all that fantastic Japanese food. I'm loving your posts about New Year's food, especially all the pictures of your family making mochi!Nancy

This is AWESOME! I love it. We eat it with soy sauce and sugar, too. They probably don't do that in Japan, but they probably don't eat mochi with butter, either (which we sometimes do!). :) Happy New Year!

Wow! I love family traditions where everyone is involved and the end product is something edible. In Texas a lot of people make tamales for Christmas and I suppose that's where my jealousy of such traditions stems from.

The mochi look amazing. I'm so jealous -- I have to buy mine in the freezer section of the grocery store.

Mochi is one of my favorite foods and I LOVE ozoni! I ate mochi dipped in soy sauce and mochi dipped in kinako and sugar as snack at friends houses on several occasions. Mmmmmm... Do you have a favorite ozoni recipe?